A convincing approval pack can still conceal an investment the organisation is not ready to deliver. Use these ten gotchas to test what sits behind the final investment decision, with lessons from project practitioners.
Updated The Major Project Podcast
From the conversations
Voices in this guide
The people and experience behind the insights. Choose a person to jump to their contribution.
PodBOK brings industry guidance together with real-world experience from major projects. Use it to inform your approach, and check the facts and requirements that apply to your project.
1.Confusing technical feasibility with a sound investment
Final investment decision, or FID, is used here for the decision to commit to major project delivery. Organisations release funding and authorise early work in different ways, so first establish what this particular approval means. Then test the reason for the investment: the need it serves, the value expected and the conditions under which that value remains credible.
Before committing: ask the sponsor to explain why this project, in this location, at this time is preferable to the credible alternatives, including deferral or doing less. Write down the assumptions that could reverse that conclusion. A technically achievable asset still needs a convincing reason to consume the organisation's capital and capacity.
2.Discovering too late that the important choices were already made
The FID meeting may feel like the big choice even though the location, capacity, technology and delivery approach were settled much earlier. Those choices may be sound, but their original reasoning can disappear as the preferred concept gathers momentum. Money already spent does not make the remaining investment worthwhile by itself.
Before committing: trace the major choices back to their alternatives and assumptions. Identify what has changed since selection and whether a credible option was discarded for a reason that no longer holds. Reopen a material question where necessary; do not assume that a late challenge is disloyalty or that every earlier choice must be repeated from scratch.
3.Approving a cost and schedule that describe different projects
A cost estimate can use one design revision while the schedule assumes another, procurement allows a different package split and the benefit date assumes an earlier start-up. Each document can look complete while the combined investment story is inconsistent. Make the scope, interfaces, exclusions, quantities, delivery sequence and risk treatment coherent before relying on the totals.
Before committing: follow a critical package from scope through resources, risk, schedule, cost and first useful output. Reconcile the versions and explain any remaining uncertainty. Akin's sequence is a way to question the basis of the numbers; the disciplines should still develop and challenge their work together as the case evolves.
4.Selecting a delivery strategy the market cannot supply
An execution strategy can assume a contractor will accept a package, a supplier will hold a manufacturing slot or a contract will transfer uncertainty that nobody can realistically control. Those assumptions affect price, competition, schedule and the work retained by the owner. Test them while there is still room to change the package or delivery approach.
Before committing: ask procurement and delivery leads to show the evidence behind contractor interest, capacity, lead times and risk allocation. Distinguish market feedback from a binding commitment. Identify the alternative if a critical package cannot be placed as assumed, and show what that does to the investment case.
5.Assuming the money will make the people appear
An organisation chart may name roles without securing the people, authority or time needed to perform them. A newly sanctioned project can also compete with existing work for specialists, construction supervision, commissioning support and owner decisions. Budget approval does not settle those conflicts.
Before committing: check the actual availability of the people needed for the next delivery period, including owner and operator responsibilities. Identify mobilisation lead times, competing assignments and capability gaps. Put the actions and their owners into the execution plan rather than assuming a future contractor will resolve every shortage.
6.Leaving permissions, access and operating needs outside the plan
The project may have a strong internal schedule while relying on unconfirmed land access, consents, utility connections, community agreements or operating arrangements. A promise that somebody will obtain these later needs a basis, an owner and enough time. Map the applicable permissions to the activities they govern and the jurisdictions involved.
Before committing: identify which permissions and external commitments are needed before each irreversible action, and what evidence supports their timing. Ask operations and commissioning representatives to review the path to usable service. Show the decision maker what can proceed, what must wait and the consequence if an external dependency is not resolved.
7.Mistaking an attractive return for an affordable commitment
A project can look attractive in a model while the organisation lacks the funding headroom or practical ability to carry its exposure. Check the timing of expenditure and benefits, the treatment of uncertainty, financing conditions where relevant, and the obligations that remain if the project is delayed or stopped. Keep future choices visible instead of defending the project because of expenditure already incurred.
Before committing: have the responsible finance and commercial teams explain the approved funding basis, remaining conditions and downside cases that would require a different decision. Ask which assumptions cause the preferred option to cease making sense. Use the appraisal rules applicable to this investment.
8.Approving with conditions that do not control anything
A condition is useful only when everyone understands what it restricts, who must resolve it and what happens if it remains open. Separate a prerequisite to commitment from an issue that can be managed within the authorised delivery plan. Calling both an action after approval can hide a material gap in readiness.
Before committing: write each proposed condition with its evidence of closure, owner, deadline and affected authority to spend or proceed. Record who can accept the remaining exposure. If a condition undermines the basis of the investment, return it for an explicit decision rather than relying on the phrase approved subject to resolution.
9.Treating assurance as the final ceremony
Assurance arrives too late when reviewers are expected to confirm a conclusion and there is no capacity to act on a finding. Give people outside the immediate delivery team a clear remit, access to the evidence and enough independence to question the preferred story. A maturity assessment can help locate gaps, but its score does not make the investment decision.
Before committing: show the accountable decision maker the significant findings, the project's response and any unresolved disagreement. Test whether the proposed people, risk allowances and delivery arrangements exist in practice. Decide whether further work, a narrower commitment or a different option is needed. Do not turn an assurance recommendation into a substitute for the owner's decision.
10.Letting the approval disappear into execution
The people delivering the project need more than the announcement and approved total. They need the agreed scope, exclusions, assumptions, funding boundaries, retained risks, conditions and benefits that justified the decision. Otherwise the approval team and the delivery team can begin with different understandings of what has been promised.
Before committing: prepare the decision record and its handover with the execution and operations leads. Confirm what is authorised now, who owns each open action, what must be monitored and which changes require reconsideration. Preserve the approved basis so later forecasts and changes can be explained against the investment that was actually accepted.
Read further
This top 10's Bookshelf
Explore the sources behind this article and related reading from our Bookshelf.
Why it's on the shelfThe Green Book examines options, costs, benefits and uncertainty within an integrated investment case. Its treatment of sunk costs and sensitivity analysis helps challenge whether a preferred option still makes sense.
National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority · Referenced by PodBOK
Why it's on the shelfThis UK gateway review examines the investment case and readiness to deliver. It distinguishes independent assurance from continuing governance and asks reviewers to examine actual progress alongside documents. Its questions cover the integrated case, assumptions, delivery capability and management controls.
Construction Industry Institute · Referenced by PodBOK
Why it's on the shelfCII describes PDRI as a way to examine scope definition and identify gaps during front-end planning. Its overview recommends using assessments before the final funding decision, with a tool suited to the project type. A score supports the discussion; it does not itself authorize an investment.
“Even though it’s called Capital Projects, that book is all about the front-end planning of projects. It’s not very technical in nature; it talks about the support mechanism required to be successful in the front-end phases. It’s geared towards executives, but still very accessible to anybody interested in capital projects. I definitely highly recommend it.”Roger Farish, on the show
Why it’s on the shelfThe IPA-rooted executive playbook for the exact phase Roger lives in, and the episode’s only book pick.
Test whether the investment makes sense in its actual setting
Akin Oni
Oni distinguishes the ability to build a project from the decision to build it now, in that location, with its assumptions and risks. His evaluation considers the market, supply chain, regulation, community, delivery capability and cost of capital.
Make people, scope, risk, schedule and cost tell the same story
Akin Oni
Oni explains his project-evaluation sequence through people, scope, risk, schedule and cost. He also asks about the permissions, community and environmental context needed to deliver and operate the asset. His point is to understand what lies behind the financial case, not just its headline cost.
Let people outside the project team challenge its readiness
Akin Oni
Oni recalls an Australian project where the owner sought specialist input and established an independent peer-review team before commitment. The reviewers challenged the risk assumptions, availability of proposed personnel and arrangements for equipment, rather than accepting the project team's confidence alone.
Know which choices were closed before the investment decision
Iwona Wilson
Wilson warns that early assessment and concept-selection decisions can narrow the available choices before FID attracts the most attention. She describes the financial, public and emotional commitments that make a later change harder, and argues for examining the assumptions while alternatives can still be considered.
Match the delivery strategy to what the market can undertake
Roger Farish
Farish describes helping an owner reduce the scale of a proposed project when its size and intended risk allocation made a suitable EPC competition difficult. The example connects scope and delivery strategy with the contractors available to execute the work.
Funding approval does not mobilise a delivery team
James Wiseman
Wiseman observes that obtaining permits, finance and sanction can take a long time, while scaling the delivery effort afterward is still difficult. His discussion challenges the assumption that securing the money makes execution an automatic next step.
National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority · Cited source
Publication details
Public HTML guidance updated 20 August 2026
Introduction, assurance framework, tailoring and purpose; Assessment of the Proposed Solution, general business-case question and management questions 6.14, 6.19 and 6.20.
Gate 3 numbering and approval arrangements describe the UK government assurance process.
Public overview of the PDRI family; no numbered overview edition stated
Opening explanation of scope definition and front-end planning; repeated assessments before authorization; guidance on selecting a PDRI for the project type.
The source is CII's public PDRI overview. Detailed score sheets, manuals and validation studies are separate publications.
Source context
The UK investment guidance's financial parameters, Gate 3 numbering and approval arrangements describe its public-sector context. Other organisations define their own investment decisions.
PodBOK · The Major Project Podcast https://www.themajorprojectpodcast.com/podbok/fid-gotchas · Updated 2026-11-01
